If you happen to own and hold yourself responsible for a piece of “outside” that is visible from the road, you’ve probably done your share of Yard Yoga. That’s what I call lawn care because when I am out there doing it, I feel as low as a Downward Dog.  

It is never fun, but last week had an additional layer of mental cruelty — I was sweating and sweltering because of a cold snap.  

Most of the things that formerly lived in front of my house had frozen to death, a toll that includes two bougainvilleas, a lemon tree, several of what I believe are called cordyline, a prehistoric-looking big-leaf thing and a half dozen crotons. A few other corpses wouldhave to be identified by the botanical equivalent of dental records if we had a plant coroner.  

Another dozen are half dead and have gray brown limp parts drooping in an unsightly manner. It looks more like we got hit by some UFO Death Ray than by a freeze.  

Meanwhile, the dollar weed is doing fine, as are a dozen or so other intrusive species that are as immune to herbicides as all the crawly and stingy things out here are to pesticides. The ant hills are pushing up nicely. Giant swarms of so-called blind mosquitoes are buzzing clumsily around. 

The walkway to the front door has some mildew that will need to be pressure cleaned. The pool screen and pool deck need it too, but that is out back where nobody can see it except the neighbors who already know how I live. So, it is a private shame that will just have to wait.  

There’s a new crack in the driveway, but I am not even going to think about it until we get a road. The city sent a big machine out last week to turn the old one into white dust that settled down to look like frost on the outdoor car and the chair I sit in to shake my fist at passing traffic.  

I also have an hour or two of Mowercize coming. Then edging.  

I was cutting back the second bougainvillea, the thorny branches of which could easily be repurposed as barbed wire. With gloves and a heavy shirt, I was only bleeding in about 13 places and mixed with the sunscreen and sweat it made sort of a gooey reddish paste – like a cupcake decorated for Halloween. In addition to all the dead, dying, cracked, mildewed  and dust-coated things, I was surrounded by two sorts of rakes, big loppers, small loppers, hoses, broom, Shop-Vac, pressure cleaner, extension cords, wheelbarrow, trash bags, a saw, two gas cans, bleach, a mower, a string trimmer, plastic spray containers of things that won’t kill bugs or weeds but will make them smell bad, and 22 billion suicidal blind mosquitoes.  

If we showed a picture like this from a third-world country, people would send in money to help. 

While struggling up a hill, looking ghoulish and fatigued, hefting a thorny bundle of dead foliage, I was approached by a young man in a golf shirt and a pair of pressed khaki pants. This barely post-adolescent asked, “are you thinking about replacing your windows?” Then he wanted to explain why I should be. 

And that, your Honor, was why I was arrested for chasing this boy down U.S. 441 with a rake. 

This didn’t actually happen. But if he comes back tomorrow, it will. And I don’t think there’s a jury in Florida that would convict me — at least not if the jurors do their own yard work.